Category: everything alex writes

Dear ________,

I have started to call my food Korean Californian. I cook food that is Korean in flavor and tradition and Californian in seasonality and chef-driven choices. I cook produce, lean meats, and seafood with the spunk (read: not funk) of a city girl discovering what Korean means to her. . . and creating community along the way. Korean Californian is not hyphenated because my food is not simply a mix of the two cuisines. I believe that as much as my food can be considered a mix of the two, my food can also staunchly stand alone as either—as either Korean or Californian. Just as I can be Korean, Californian, or Korean Californian, my food can be one or the either or both at the same time. In this way, I am my own food. Or if we must use the word “fusion,” to borrow from the popular lexicon, this is how you do “fusion” right. 

In early March, I stayed with and worked for Iria do Castelo, an artist in Galicia, the northernmost region of Spain. (Read Galicia Diaries 01 here.) Iria asked me to collaborate on and cook for a dinner party at her home-garden studio, Castelo Studio. Iria would invite her nine of her closest friends—her chosen family—and I would have free range in the kitchen and creative freedom over the menu. I had not cooked and engaged my food brain during the month prior in Madrid. I mostly ate yogurt out of the tub and threw together girl dinners, so I was ready to return to the kitchen and curate a menu of my food.

I decided cook my food—Korean Californian—except transform the Californian into Galician. Galicia prides itself on some of the country’s best wine, produce, and fish, and with such great products, Galician cuisine concentrates on cooking with what is locally grown and caught. Sound familiar? It is unsurprising that Galician provisions and philosophy is reminiscent of California’s because California cuisine is drawn directly from the Mediterranean diet. Leaning into these shared values, I hoped to create a menu for Iria and her friends that would feature new flavors in familiar forms. Korean flavors in Galician forms.

          I approach the act of creating new dishes and formulating them into a menu as mental exercise. This is the first time that I have To begin, I find myself usually inspired by a shared staple—whether ingredient or dish—in each cuisine. I read into the cultural significance of the star ingredients or dish, and I try to focus on complementing ingredients instead of choosing between them. In my experience, the best fit is one in which star ingredients take on different roles: perhaps one is used more for visual appeal/form and the other is used for flavor. Or if multiple ingredients contribute to flavor, then I decide for which flavors (e.g., salty, sweet, sour, etc.) each ingredient is responsible. Each dish becomes a puzzle of sorts. The puzzle is solved when no ingredient is competing* with each other. The dish feels more fluid than forced. 

*This is precisely why your miso-gochujang doesn’t make sense. Both pastes are made from fermented soybean and provide salinity and pungency, making them compete for the same flavors. Other flavors then get overlooked, and the dish feels unbalanced. It feels sensationalist and punchy in one direction. The contention between the miso and gochujang is further complicated by Japan’s and Korea’s relationship as colonizer and colonized, respectively. Under Japanese rule, kimchi was denigrated to a “vulgar and unsanitary” food and used to identify Koreans in the ghettos. Gangjang factories were turned into shoyu factories. Rice fields were extorted so that 98% of white rice was exported to Japan. Korean were then forced to eat other grains, such as millet, sorghum, etc. I could go on. I do not know the whole history itself. But I think I will reserve the rest of this discourse for a future essay.

This is my first time writing out my process, and I realize that I make my process sound much more cogent than it really is. It is usually never stepwise. My process is more of a bushel of ideas that I prune (while sitting on the train or running in the park). I fiddle with the bushel until it comes to a natural arrangement. Through this iterative process, I make food that feels my own—rather than “fusion.” It is how I brainstorm new recipes, think through pop-up menu ideas.  This is why my food makes sense. . . to me. Or for lack of a better word, this is how you do “fusion” right. This is what I cooked for my Spanish Korean dinner party. No hyphen.

• bread with tomato and miyeok / pan con tomate y alga

In Spain, Pan con tomate alone is commonly served for breakfast. But when introduced as a tapa or pincho, pan con tomate may be served con anchoas, sardinas, o jamon. As an alternative to anchovies and sardines, I topped my pan con tomate with seaweed, Korean miyeok (or wakame in Japanese). I believed miyeok, also from the sea, would mimic the salinity and chew.

          Tomatoes are not native to Korea; in fact, I cannot name a single traditional korean dish that uses tomatoes. But I do remember seeing my grandmother dust a raw tomato with sugar and then take a bite out of it as though it were an apple. She would then offer a bite to me. (My Reddit search shows me that a raw tomato with sugar indeed is a Korean thing.)

• korean russian potato salad / ensaladilla rusa y coreana

          Ensaladilla rusa, a mayo-heavy potato salad with eggs, olives, and tinned tuna, is another beloved Spanish classic. José Luis said his mother would make the dish weekly while growing up. In Madrid, everyone I met, from the cool girls of Madrid to José Luis, told me that they knew the best ensaladilla rusa in the city. 

          I like ensaladilla rusa because it reminds me of a Korean potato salad. Korean potato salad is normally served as a banchan, or side dish. Koreans add apples, carrots, and cucumbers for sweetness and crunch. I wanted to make a potato salad recognizable to both cultures: ensaladilla rusa y coreana. I thought the sweetness of the apples and carrots would complement the brine of the tuna and olives. I was nervous to make this dish of such high sentimental value. But to my surprise, my potato salad was many guest’s favorite plate of the night. 

• salad with a miso-sesame and preserved lemon marmalade dressing / ensalada con adrezco de miso, sesame, y mermelada de limon casera

         No meal is complete for me without greens. The most common Korean green salad is sanchu geotchori–cut romaine aside a gochugaru vinaigrette. I would have liked to serve sanchu geotchori using local greens, but I did not have the foresight to pack gochugaruwith me. (Six weeks prior, I thought I was going to work on a kiwi farm, not in an artist’s home-studio-garden.) What did I have on hand? Earlier that week, I made a salad dressing with miso and sesame oil (that I had hauled from Madrid) and leftover lemon marmalade (that Castelo Studio’s previous artist-in-residence made.) Iria loved it so much that she wanted to share it with her friends. So, while not exactly Korean, this salad does feel very Alex. I was inspired by what I had on hand…that is, I’m not really sure you can call it cooking. I just throw whatever I have in the fridge/panty and voila vegetables.

• soy-braised hake with daikon and potatoes / daegu jorim  대구조림 / merluza estofada con salsa de soja

          Wild-caught seafood is a point of pride for Galicia. In fact, I was told that some Galicians are known only to eat fish caught in Galicia. Iria introduced me to merluza earlier in the week, cooking me a casual 4:00p roasted whole fish for lunch. Merluza is a mild, Spanish, white fish, that is typical of the region. While researching merluza, I found a Galician recipe for Merluza a la gallega, merluza braised with potatoes. The steak cuts of fish nestled between chunks of potato reminded me of daegu jorim, Korean braised black cod with daikon. Daegu jorim is one of my mother and my favorite dishes to eat at home. It is usually meal waiting for me at home after I land at LAX. I prefer the more classic fiery, red version while my mom prefers the sweeter, soy-based version. Again, I did not have gochugaru with me, so I made the soy-based version. My merluza was the second favorite of the night.

• korean seafood pancake or ‘tortilla’ / haemul pajeon 해물전 / tortilla coreana con mariscos

          There are many different types of Korean pancakes, or jeon: kimchi jeon, saengsun jeon (fish), buchu  jeon (chive),  pajeon (green onion), and my favorite haemul pajeon (seafood and green onion).  I have scaled up pajeon previously for . While pajeon is normally a thin pancake, I like to make my jeon thick and fluffy, using baking soda and seltzer water. I have cooked a triple allium pajeon previously for my Dinner Party pop-up a few years back, and I thought bringing this pajeon back would be the perfect visual play on a classic Spanish tortilla. I added Galician-caught seafood this time, which thickened the pancake even more, further giving it the appearance of a tortilla. Even though my pa jeon was entirely Korean in flavor, I loved that Iria and her friends kept referring to the pa jeon as a tortilla. They considered it a Spanish tortilla as much as I considered it a Korean pancake. You can find my haemul pajeon recipe exclusively here on Castelo Studio.

• korean tea cookies / dasik 다식 / galletas coreanas de té

      Iria said her favorite desserts were light palate cleansers, and my mind immediately went to tea cookies.  …Korean tea cookies? I had never heard of Korean tea cookies though before. Koreans eat rice cakes, not cookies. 

          After a quick Google search though, I found that Korean tea cookies do exist. Dasik, Korean toasted rice flour cookies, are no-bake, four-ingredient  cookies: glutinous rice flour, powdered sugar, honey, and water. I studied multiple different recipes onlines and vaguely followed this recipe by Kimchimari. I made two variations—matcha and misugaru. I brought both teas all the way from NYC. (I did have some foresight there.) With only honey and water as a binder, I feared the cookies might be quite chalky and dry. The cookies fared overnight perfectly however. We enjoyed the cookies alongside a tarta de Santiago, a traditional Galician almond flour cake from Santiago de Compostela, that one of Iria’s friends brought. ⋆⭒˚｡⋆